So since our last blog, a lot has happened yet in between that not much has happened. It’s kind of hard to explain. We did three shows in the last few days, and everyone was interesting in their own way, some were better than others but we had a good time at all of them regardless.

On Thursday we played at the MBK Tattoo Contest, and the first thing I realised when I got there is Tattoo’s are huge in Thailand. I walked off the sky train into the outside of MBK Shopping Centre, to be confronted by a massive entourage of piercings, ink, body modifications, needle guns, punks, metal heads and tourists all inked to the bone. Walking around with my clean, pirecless and inkless skin I couldn’t help but feel like a bit of an outsider. There must have been over 1000 people there. As you walked through the crowd all you noticed or heard was the sound of needle guns, all you saw were people selling Tattoo equipment or getting inked. There were creepy looking guys with horns coming out of their foreheads and stretched earlobes that could have had tennis balls in them and pretty Asian girls inked to the max wearing nurse uniforms and handing out flyers.

I saw my first body suspension and let’s just say it was an interesting and frightening experience. A band called Barbwire Bats fronted by an American named Eddie, who runs a small production company (Scream Out loud Thailand), got the proceedings of hooks and blood on its way. All he said was “we are the Barbwire Bats and this is our friend CJ” referring to the hanging able and willing body suspender. Then he kicked the ladder that CJ was standing on and it was all eyes on him. The crowd that seemed to have grown due to the spectacle on stage didn’t really say or do much, all they did was get out their cameras and proceed to fire away. It was literally a sea of cameras maybe 1000 at least. Just shooting relentlessly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could see all those flashes going off from space! CJ reminded me of a skater or “extreme sports man hahaha” as he kept jumping from one end of the stage to the next getting pushed from side to side doing crazy spins, and other tricks during the suspension, apparently he’s been doing this for 8 years, so he obviously knows the drill and in this instance it isn’t lame to be using the word “extreme” because that’s pretty much the only way to describe it. Barbwire Bats are quite a cool band they play a very old school sort of Dead Kennedys kind of punk rock.

After that we thought we were going to go on stage in about an hour and a half we ended up waiting 6 hours to play. Everything was running late and the rain didn’t help either. It was still pretty fun though, hanging with some of the local punks, watching all the interesting and different people lurking about and seeing all the amazing Tattoos in the contest. Some guy got a full back piece all the way down his leg, the artistry was incredible. Yet by the time it was our turn to play it seemed all the festivities were just about over. We were supposed to play around 7:30pm and we ended up going on after 10 and the whole event was scheduled to end at 9:30pm. There were only about 20 people left. But we still gave it our all on the huge stage to no one. Thanks to Popeye who was visiting Bangkok from Germany, we made friends with him on MySpace a few days before he came. He waited 8 hours just to see us play. He also helps two really cool German bands back in Berlin run their MySpace pages; the bands are called A Pony named Olga and Blechreiz. There was also some other arb lady from Germany who also waited in the heat and rain all day just to watch the show, things like that make all the delays and bad luck worth it. The highlight of the gig for me was when a man from Bangladesh of all places came up on stage after the show with his wife and said he really enjoyed the gig. It was totally unexpected the guy must have been pushing 50 and he had this giant grin on his face and all he could say was “I really like your band especially the song strangers in your town” a very weird and cool experience ha-ha. I wrote down our MySpace address for him and told him to come to the next show.

So we got invited back to play Noriega’s the following day, it’s strangely one of the most dodgy places to play at in Bangkok. Strange because the only people who go there are rich tourists and the drinks cost 160 Baht a pop. But then the sound is just about falling to pieces, the drums had a broken high hat clutch and one of the guitar amps just kept cutting out. But we were getting paid, not a lot but still every cent counts when you’re poor South Africans.

CJ the body suspender who was making a recovery after his adventures the day before made his way all the way down to the venue (thanks man much appreciated) and Eddie from scream out loud also rocked up and so did Popeye our German friend. But other than about 4 other people on top of that, that was the crowd. So it was a bit of a dismal turnout. We played pretty well I thought and everyone who was there seemed to like the show. After the gig we just hung out with CJ, Eddie and Popeye and talked for hours about all sorts of crap, from Tattoos to, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. We told the guys that South Africa was one of the coolest places to live and a truly beautiful country but the crime just seems to ruin it, they all seemed scared yet intrigued at the same time. CJ was pumped to come for the 2010 World Cup and we told him we would definitely show him around. We’ve met some really cool people so far from all around the world and everyone seems to have their own story to tell about how they ended up in Thailand. Because the drinks were so expensive we ended up going to 7/11 and buying 36 Baht Quarts and just kept refilling the mugs in front of us, at one stage the waitress even came by and cleared a whole bunch of empty bottles lying next to our table.

That night I fell in love with a little Kitten at about 3am. It was the cutest little thing, it was white, black and grey and its tail had been chopped off. A lot of the cats around Bangkok seem to have no tails for some reason and the streets are littered with stray cats. I was just about to take it home with me because my brother lives in Bangkok and he could have given it a really good life. But as I was walking off with the Kitten, the manager of Noriega’s ran out and said “no no please don’t take it, he has a mother, look he needs the milk”. I saw a bowl of water outside the venue that all the cats were drinking from it and I pondered whether or not the manager looks after them, he seemed secretly very fond of the strays. As he carried on protesting I put the cat down, he offered another one to me and explained to me that, that particular cat didn’t have a mother. But it ran off into the distance.

Now it was 4am and we needed a Taxi home which is quite hard considering we were about an hours’ drive from where we were staying. Some drunk Ausie we met at the bar kept on saying “come on blokes, I’m going to take you to this really cool club, all the musos hang out there, I’ll even pay for the cab”. But at that stage the only person interested was Haydn and I just wanted the guy to leave. Eventually we made our way home and we got into bed with the sun about to rise.

The next day we visited a local skate park, there was quite a fun little bowl, but some big skate contest was going on and there were loads of people skating and hanging out so it was hard to enjoy the park. There seems to be some really good skateboarders in Bangkok.

Then Sunday we played at one of the best venues we have been to since we have arrived called The Rock Pub. Dragonforce have played there and The Haunted from Sweden are playing there in two weeks so I felt a little honored to finally be up on a good stage with great sound and lighting. We met these two Ausies before the show and they seemed to be really cool, people. The one guy was one of the craziest guys I’ve met in a long time. We also met these two Canadian girls by the name of Kelsy and Katrina whilst hanging out on the islands and they rocked up at our gig as well, which was a really nice surprise. Popeye, made a mission out again and it was his last night in Bangkok before heading back to Germany.

We got interviewed for Channel V Thailand (a local TV Channel). This guy Pradon saw us play at our first gig in Thailand by accident and really enjoyed the show, he’s busy working on a reality type TV show where he finds new and emerging bands he enjoys, and it’s all leading up to a concert we might get booked for by December that’s sponsored by Heineken. They also filmed the show and they invited us to play at a party that is taking place on the 28^th of November. We played with a really talented band by the name of Over Me; the singer had a vocal range I haven’t quite heard before. It was like a trained Oprah singer doing rock and funk, very cool indeed. One of the crazy Ausies Cas just went berserk during our gig he started running around like a madman, whilst the rest of the crowd just sat down. At one stage he was so damn crazy and entertaining the crowd was watching him and not the band. It was also really cool to meet Orlando he’s from the Philippines and has been living in Thailand for a while he travelled quite a distance to come see us, thanks so much!

After the show we went to 7/11 to try and buy some more cheap booze, because again I didn’t even have enough money to buy one drink at the bar. But in Thailand you can’t buy drinks at 7/11 after 12 so, we just sat there drinking water for about half an hour. By then we had met up with another Ausie, and we were sitting around a table with three Australians, 2 Canadians, 4 South Africans and 1 German.

Then all of a sudden the Ausie who had been living in Thailand a while, said “I will get us booze, Thai whiskey”. He walked off into the distance and came back about 15 minutes later with 3 Quarts of beer and 2 Bottles of cheap and nasty Thai Whiskey. The Whiskey is the harshest, vilest liquid I have ever poured down my throat and I almost gagged after one shot. So we sat there for a while then all of sudden this uptight looking guy came out of the Bar and he didn’t look impressed that we were sitting right outside his club drinking beer and whiskey that wasn’t bought there so we thought we might have to leave. But then all of a sudden one of the waiters came out with a bucket full of water and a shot glass, so we knew it was ok.

Then shots kept flying around the table and all of a sudden the whiskey was finished. An American couple rocked up and we screamed at them to come and party so they went inside bought a bottle of cheap Thai rum and came out and sat with us. Then things went pear shaped as people started to talk about George Bush, Barak Obama and John McCain. Crazy Cas stood up and said “All McCain is, is another George Bush, fuck politics, let’s just drink to good fucking time’s man”. Shortly after that the Americans left, I think they were republicans.

Now it’s about 3am and there’s a pile of old electronics, USB cables and outdated cell phone charges, in Cardboard boxes just down the alley from where we were sitting. Cas stands up and runs towards it screaming at the top of his lungs. Everyone’s barking remarks back at him like “bring me an IPod Nano or a PS3”, he runs at us with a big box and falls flat on his face, all the USB cables and outdated cell phone charges are strewn over the floor. He picks up a pile of them in his drunken state and says “here these are for you”. Badger puts some on his head and closely resembles Ol Greg from The Mighty Boosh. Then we realise it’s about 3:40 in the morning and time to go. It was a pretty crazy night. Haydn ended up stuffing a whole pile of arb computer cables in my bag before we left; still don’t know what the hell they are for.

Anyway it’s been a crazy last few days, we might be playing two shows over Halloween but the one that is definitely on is at White Out, at the back of Coco Walk behind Music Society. Its scream out loud’s Halloween Party so it should be pretty fucking cool. Maybe see you there, until next time, keep rocking.

-Chin